


Cuckoo in the Nest

by KittenKong



Series: Supernatural Batfam [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Depressed Dick Grayson, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Dick Grayson loves his family very much, He wanted it but also he really didn't its complicated, Hurt No Comfort, I'm very sorry Dickie is a very sad boy in this, Implied/Reference Main Character Death, Implied/Referenced Cannibalism, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Romani Dick Grayson, Rugaru!Dick Grayson, Seriously its kinda fucked up but it's off screen, Suicidal Thoughts, Supernatural Elements, sterilisation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:27:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26952853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittenKong/pseuds/KittenKong
Summary: Dick had forgotten a lot about his parents in the twenty-two years since they’d died. He remembered the glitter of the lights, the excitement of the show, and the feel of the train rocking him to sleep as they travelled from showground to showground. But the memory that was clearest to him, perhaps because it was so out of place even way back then, was when, at the age of six, his mother had sat him down and carefully explained death to him. Because she'd been sad. So very sad.
Series: Supernatural Batfam [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1966837
Comments: 10
Kudos: 81





	Cuckoo in the Nest

Dick had forgotten a lot about his parents in the twenty-two years since they’d died. His childhood memories of them were fuzzy at best, and, having only being eight at the time of their passing, he struggled to remember the cadences of their voices, or how they moved when they flittered and flew through the air on the wires of the trapeze. Many of his memories of the circus were made of little more than fleeting emotions and vague, unsure shadows. He remembered the glitter of the lights, the excitement of the show, and the feel of the train rocking him to sleep as they travelled from showground to showground.

But the memory that was clearest to him, perhaps because it was so out of place even way back then, was when, at the age of six, his mother had sat him down and carefully explained death to him. He remembered it not because of the subject matter, nor because of the mangled corpse of the squirrel that had spurred his questions, but because of the way his Daj’s face had twisted in a way that was so very unlike her usual self.

 _“It’s something we’re all going to face, mon petit oiseau,”_ she’d explained, clutching at his hands, _“some of us quicker than is perhaps fair.”_

The conversation had been long and careful, and although he didn’t remember everything that was said that day, he remembered her brushing his hair out of his eyes and telling him that, should anything happen to Dat or herself while he was still young, she’d left him a very important letter under their mattress, and that, when he was a teenager, he was to read it.

And then she’d looked at him – with his scraped knees and elbows, his freshly gap-toothed smile – and looked _sad_. So very sad. Like she was watching a tragedy unfolding before her eyes.

When his parents had died only a couple years later, that letter had been carefully slipped between the pages of his Dat’s favourite book and stuffed into the single bag he’d been permitted to take with him has he was whisked away from the only home he’d ever known.

The night of his 13th birthday, happily stuffed full of birthday cake and tired from a day of celebrations, he’d slipped that book from his bookshelf, carefully opened the letter, read its contents, and promptly vomited into the toilet. Because it wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t _fair._

Over the next couple of months, between patrols and classes, he’d poured over those words. He searched for any sign of a joke, or some hidden instruction beyond what was so clearly being said. But all he found was ink that had so obviously been cried on, and words that made his stomach churn with disgust.

Sneaking things past Bruce and Alfred was never easy, but this was something he couldn’t bear them ever knowing. So, he worked slowly. Carefully. Never on the main servers, never when he’d be missed, but instead on his laptop in his bedroom as he carefully researched each and every piece of information that his mother had penned onto the page and found nothing but truth after horrifying truth.

His grandfather had killed himself. As had his great-grandfather, and his great-great-grandfather, and so on for as far back as he could find. All of them within the week following their 30th birthdays.

His own father had only been planning on being alive for half a decade longer than he had ultimately lived.

For the first time in his life, if for a fleeting moment, he’d _hated_ his parents. He’d hated their selfishness for bringing them into the world while knowing that he’d be _this._ Knowing what his fate would be.

He was a monster. He didn’t have a choice not to be, not really. He could try as hard as possible, hold out for as long as he could, but it would happen. It was in his genes.

He was not human. He was no _robin._ He was a cuckoo hidden in humanity's nest, hiding in plain sight and pretending to be something he was not before he’d swiftly turn on them through nothing but wild, unabashed instinct.

He refused to do as such.

When he was seventeen, it had hit him just how young his parents had been. How when they were his age, they’d had him. How they’d been married a year later. He’d never really thought of that before, but now it made sense to him why they’d had him so young. After all, his father had had only so many years to play around with. He’d already breezed through half of his life.

He had himself sterilised at eighteen. It had taken some careful hacking and a fake ID, but he did it without being caught. How he’d kept that one from Bruce and Alfred, he still didn’t know, but between Bruce’s knowing smiles whenever he interacted with kids, and Alfred’s subtle hinting at wanting great-grandchildren (and the lack of confrontation from them both) in the following years, he was sure that he’d managed it.

He’d gotten home after the vasectomy, crawled into his bed, and very nearly didn’t leave it for three days as he sobbed himself dry into his pillow.

He’d always wanted kids. He’d wanted to be a father. The idea that he never would be – either biologically or via adoption – was like a full clip of bullets to the chest. But as much as he ached for it, he never wanted any child of his to suffer through what he had suffered. To go through the mental torment of knowing their own fate was out of their control, to experience the death of a parent, especially when they’d be so young.

He loved his parents. He did. He loved them so much it felt like his heart would burst from his chest. He understood, now that he was a little older, why they had done what they’d done. Why they’d had him. His very soul _sang_ at the idea of being a father to some hypothetical child. He imagined that Dat had experienced much the same.

Dick was, at his core, a selfish man. Selfishness disguised as selflessness, but selfish all the same. This was the one thing he could not allow himself to give in to.

He’s not so proud that he wouldn’t admit that he latched onto Damian in a way that was distinctly parental rather than fraternal. At first, it was by necessity, but when Bruce had returned, it was simply greed.

At least with Damian, he’d have a _real_ father to fall back on once he was gone.

As the years passed and his time started inching closer and closer, he felt himself caring less and less. He kept smiling for his family and friends, but his bones were like lead. What did it matter if he pushed himself too hard? If something he did now could possibly affect him in fifty years? Why should he care if he died on the job, or if his diet wasn’t sustainable if he wanted to have his health later on?

He was a good actor – he’d been a performer for as long as he could remember, after all – and he very carefully made sure to hide his weariness from them. He didn’t want to spend his last few years (because that’s what they were) arguing with Bruce about his mental health. He wanted to spend them surrounded by those he loved. He didn’t want them to treat him like glass. He already knew he was broken.

Dick wasn’t suicidal. It’s not like he _wanted_ to die, right? It was just that it was better for him to be dead. Safer for everybody. He was a ~~monster~~ hero. He made sure people were safe. That was his job.

By the time he was twenty-nine, he’d finished all his arrangements. He’d finalised his will, carefully cleaned up his apartment – but not enough that any of his siblings would question it when they randomly dropped in – and had written letters for those important to him. He stressed that this was not their fault. He had not been unhappy. He loved each and every one of them and felt loved in return. He did this because he had to, because it was _important_ , because the world would be better without him, and, if all went right, they’d never need to find out why.

He requested his belongings, save the items that he had carefully separated into boxes, be burned, and that he was buried with his parent’s wedding rings and photos of them all together. Whether that was within the Wayne family mausoleum or next to his parents, he didn’t mind.

The eve before his 30th was perhaps the oddest day of his life, which in his line of work, was saying something. It was strange knowing, as he lay in his childhood bedroom at the manor, that he’d never return to his apartment. That the next people who walked through that door would very likely be his grieving family searching for clues, only to find the letters neatly stacked on his coffee table, and his things all boxed away. That within the next couple of days he’d get dressed for the very last time. That he’d give his family one last, final hug. That he’d get onto his bike, leave the manor, and take one last look at the stars before he died.

The thought of having that weight off his shoulders was so very _freeing_ , and he went through the day and its celebrations feeling lighter than he had since he was thirteen and first learning of his fate.

He felt oddly guilty that his family had clearly put so much effort into buying him his birthday gifts when he was never going to be able to enjoy them. He made sure to sincerely thank them before he went to bed, stuffed full of birthday cake, melancholy and déjà-vu.

He awoke the next morning, hours before daybreak, starving with an unbearable, primal hunger. Craving something that he’d never tasted before, never contemplated further than instant revulsion, but that he just _knew_ would be the sweetest thing. The temptation to sneak across the hall and into one of his sibling’s bedrooms was near overpowering, and he was forced to slam his fingers into his bedside draw to force himself to focus.

He should have known he’d never be so lucky to have a couple extra days of peace.

So, he made his way down to the cave after giving his bedroom – and the gifts stacked neatly on his desk – one last, savouring look, swung his leg over the bike he had stored there, and left without so much as a glance over his shoulder and no intention to see the sunrise.

**Author's Note:**

> So... yeah. I think a mixture of reading all the whumptober stuff and rewatching a ton of 'Supernatural' during the quarantine might have done something to my brain and I rushed this out in two days in the middle of working on my uni assignemts.  
> If you didn't read the tags, because I didn't directly address it in the fic, in this Dick is a Rugaru. Basically, he'd transform into a wendigo-ish creature and eat people due to uncontrollable hunger for human flesh. It's not exactly how it is in the show (and is distinctly different again from the actual myths) being that in that they changed once they reproduced, but that's too easy of a fix, you know? And I gotta get that angst. 
> 
> I'm not planning on continuing this any further - I'm not confident in my ability to write an... aftermath I guess you could say, in a way that doesn't come across as blunt or isn't respectful and so would rather leave that up to the imagination. But hey! Maybe a magic user from another dimension swooped in and 'cured' him, maybe he fell into a Lazarus pit on the way there and it actually helped? I mean I doubt it, but anythings possible. 
> 
> Anyway - I hope you guys are all as well as you can be! It's complicated down in my little corner of the world (but luckily we're down to only a handful of cases a day). 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed(?)! Stay Safe, all!
> 
> \- KK


End file.
